A very cool 60's hipster style movie. It looks almost like a Seijin Suzuki film right down to having Jo Shishido playing a hitman. Unfortunately it doesn't pay-off quite as well as a Suzuki film. If your going to make a "youth crime" sort of film, you have to push that exploitation factor a bit more. The violence and action were just a bit too restrained.

With one of my last viewings of 2018 being Julien Duvivier's delightful Maria Chapdelaine (1934) from my pile of French films to view,I started thinking about what title from my Japanese movie mountain I should see first in 2019. After viewing the magnificent Red Pier (1958) a few weeks ago, fellow IMDber ManFromPlanetX told me about another flick by director Toshio Masuda, which led to me hustling some velvet.

View on the film:

Beaming with colour, co-writer/(with Kaneo Ikegami) director Toshio Masuda continues his collaboration with cinematographer Kuratarô Takamura in giving the Nikkatsu Diamond Guys genre a French New Wave twist. Retaining the precision displayed Red Pier with Goro's hat being framed in the corner of the screen, Masuda and Takamura make Goro's time in hiding one lit in delicious Pop-Art candy colours of red, pinks greens and blues bubbling away to a rebellious youthful atmosphere. Closely working with editor Shinya Inoue, Masuda sharply uses side cuts to give the flick a real snap, and swings into the post-WWII optimism with hip song and dance numbers. Stating in the dialogue about Goro being in Kobe, not the usual Tokyo, Masuda takes advantage of the setting and uses it to finely balance the burst of young energy with a Neo-Noir brittleness panning from outstanding extended shots gliding Goro against the imposing backdrop of Kobe, which go down to the stark docklands where Goro looks across the sea to freedom.

Expanding on the outline of Red Pier, the screenplay by Masuda and Kaneo Ikegami brilliantly make this one which can wear its own hat proudly,with the writers giving the sweet-appearance of the movie a surprising level of grit in the laid-back dialogue on casual sex from Goro, along with a tightly strung, bitter love. Gliding round the Kobe underworld, the writers throw balls of lively dialogue into an excellent animated mix of Pop-Art gangsters, happy snappy reporters and the looming shadow of dames with doomed love. Finding himself hiding in Kobe with no friends, Tetsuya Watari gives an outstanding performance as Goro, whose chilled rebel without a cause swagger is pinned by Watari with an awareness of being a Noir loner, who is heading out to sea like a shooting star.